


Wild

by Leni



Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen, Pre-Serenity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-24
Updated: 2011-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-27 23:57:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/301500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leni/pseuds/Leni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No, there is no room for a tender sex here...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wild

Inara would never say a word, she’s too much of a gentlewoman to address such a subject and, Zoë thinks, the Companion has warmed up to the ways of _Serenity_ , and eventually understood they were little different to the ways of the worlds where they make their trade. Who knows to kill has the right to do it, who owns a property has the duty to protect it. Basic rules, at least that’s what it seemed to Zoë until the first time Inara was at the bridge at the wrong time, and ended up witness to a couple greedy fellows being gunned down.

“Wasn’t there another way?” Inara asked that night, after she’d composed herself back into the unflappable lady that is her top performance.

The captain scoffed, “You mean, gettin' killed myself?”

Zoë noticed the other woman’s flinch, and so the similar answer stuck on her tongue. “None that we cared to use,” she said instead.

“I… see.” Inara took the hand Kaylee had offered, and for a moment stared at their hands before her eyes turned to Zoë, to the gun strapped to her body, and lingered at the short distance between Zoë’s fingers and the trigger. "I'll go back to the shuttle," she rushed to say when Zoë fisted her hand.

It took Zoë a couple more weeks, and a daring couple honeymooning in the wild side of the 'verse as their new passengers, to understand Inara's reaction. The young wife couldn't take her eyes off Zoë's firearm, eyes alight with curiosity, and when Jayne strutted by, showing Vera off, he got barely more than a cursory glance and the husband's best warning glare.

The woman finally dared to approach her the last night of their stay on _Serenity_ , but kept her husband close at hand. "Have you ever shot people, Mrs. Washburne? Shot them dead?" When Zoë nodded, a little diverted by such a question, the woman actually clapped in delight. "How wondrous. Did you hear, Daniel. She really fights," she gushed as she returned to her husband, "I _know_ you told me so, darling, but still... what a wild story to tell the girls back home!"

The one time they didn’t get in trouble, and they get called names. Life was not fair at all.

But Zoë understood: at the Core, women were ladies, and ladies had no business in killing.

What a strange world.

“No, mei-mei,” the doctor would say months later, after he and River had settled a little more in _Serenity_. “Guns are no toys.” The fourth time the girl wandered to where Zoë or Jayne were cleaning their weapons, Simon grabbed his sister’s arm, a full syringe in his other hand, and whispered so loudly that even Mal, so far distracted by a game of poker with the Shepherd, put his cards down and frowned. “ _River_. Those are _not_ for little girls.”

Not for little girls.

Zoë didn’t know whether to laugh or be offended. Did their all-knowing on-board doctor really believe that anyone would sign up to fight the war, and survive it with all limbs and most of their mind intact, without already being the best shot they could be?

Crazy Core and their babying their people. No wonder the doc couldn’t survive on his own – although, Zoë had to admit, the boy was learning the ropes fast as he could; what with a little sister to hide and protect.

Sometimes, late at night when _Serenity_ is gently gliding through space, she and Wash play at guessing what life at the Core must be like, to create people like Inara and Simon. “Greenhouse people,” was Wash’s favorite theory. Pampered and regulated, people who were handed down the perfect means to grow perfect lives in perfect conditions in a perfect environment.

“So we’re the weeds?” Zoë retorted once.

Wash laughed. “I like that thought.” He kissed her forehead, with that quirk on his lips that meant he’d plead to be smoothing down a frown if she accused him of being too lovey. “It means we’re tough to kill, my temperamental, stubborn, wild flower. And we’re _excellent_ at propagating -” The next kiss had no teasing intent. “Not much minding they got one thing right.”

“Just the one,” Zoë decided, before grabbing her man’s shoulders and pulling him closer.

Wash understands.

Mal understands. And Jayne and Kaylee, too.

They wouldn’t dream that it could be otherwise.

Shepherd Book gets it, too. Whoever their good pastor was before he took the habits, knew the ache of standing between someone else’s life or death, and knowing you’d always choose your own life first. Even River understands. Yes. Zoë has seen that look in the girl, the one that speaks of an itch that can’t get scratched until you’re holding your weapon and fitting your grasp around it so you’ll belong together. The looks vanishes soon enough, always veiled by whatever else the poor girl is plagued by, but there it lights up every once in a while.

The other two residents of their ship…. Doesn’t matter that they try. Doesn’t matter that she considers Inara and Simon crew now; that she’s learned their ways, or at least the ways they’ve adapted to, to fit in _Serenity_. Deep down, the question will be answered but it won’t ever go away.

Fit, they might. Belong, never.

Out here, nobody would dare to question her abilities, never mind have a second thought that the gun guarding Captain Reynolds’s is handled by a woman. Why should they? The Black does more than see its share of violence – it creates more, breeds it and nurtures it and sends it away in underfed boys and girls that must make a living in towns that can barely handle their own. The war may be over, but those greenhoused fools from the Core would have an eye-opener in any of the settlements out here. Not enough food, not enough education, no darn medics worth the name. Not enough _peace_. No, there is no room for a tender sex here, and Zoë has yet to hear that sex has any preference for either side of justice.

“You ready?” her captain asks, eyeing the bar they’re about to enter. They’re meeting the twins tonight, some bank job ready for the picking.

Zoë checks her gun, just in case. “Let’s.”

Core government can spout all the laws it want while hunting little girls across the ‘verse, they can paper up justice until nobody recognizes right from wrong.

Out here, people know better.

…and she’d rather side with _Serenity_ , anyway.

 

The End  
01/02/11


End file.
